Beans An Apologia For Not Loving To Cook Summary

The poem, “Beans, An Apologia for Not Loving to Cook,” is very cultural, political, and personal. It is a memory of the author, Judith Ortiz, that she is telling her daughter, Tanya. She shared in her poem that she learned to resent cooking because the women of her life, like her mother and grandmother, who chose cooking, among other things, over spending time with her. Women not only tended to the men of the household, but also to the gossip told in the kitchen. Judith was expected to do the same one day as well, but decided she wouldn’t follow in their foot steps. As the poem progresses one can conclude as the author comes to the conclusion of her poem, she addresses her daughter in a different mindset then before. Judith originally thought that her whole reason for not loving to cook was due to political reason, but this was not the case. First off, the poem follows not particular rhyme scheme or meter. Judith chooses not set style. The author is very straight forward when getting her point across. This makes it very evident that she is unhappy with her this particular part of her childhood and about what her expectations where at the time. Both are causes as to why she doesn’t cook.

In this stanza, it is my personal opinion that this is the stanza where Judith realizes that she hasn’t resisted cooking due to political reasons, but rather because she just didn’t enjoy it. Judith explains she didn’t like the gossip between the women, and the way they act towards each other. All of this is evident in the following lines, “I resisted the lessons of the kitchen then, fearing the Faustian exchanges of adults, the shape-shifting nature of women by the fire(Ortiz).” So now that she has realized she just didn’t want to cook because she was scared of who she would become, she writes to her